First Sunday of Lent

First Sunday of Lent
February 13, 2005

"... the moment you eat of it you will become like gods... then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked..." (Genesis 2:7-9, 3:1-7). "Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted.. " (Matthew 4:1-11)

Genesis/Torah tells the story of the "fall" of our original human ancestors. After being enticed away from their Creator by promises of autonomous power over their world, they suddenly realized contrary to what they had been promised, that they were naked. Jesus undergoes a similar trial of enticement, dueling with Satan, and this time the result is much different, finally undoing the damage created by our human rebellion against the Most High.

Maybe we Christians and Jews have grossly underestimated the concept of sin by making it synonymous with breaking rules. The original word means "to miss the mark". Something, whatever we call it, seems to propel us in the direction of living thoughtlessly, unaware of the damage we do to others and ourselves, unable in spite of our best efforts to be the kind of people we want to be. Hitting the mark is living immersed in the Spirit of God, the Spirit of truth, goodness, and harmony with our fellow human beings and nature. Just as the poetic description of Eden would have it. All of us succumb to some version of the enticement to which our original human ancestors succumbed. We have inherited their difficulty with distinguishing right from wrong, good from evil. Whatever our personal version of this "sin" might be, it seems always to contain choices made for our own benefit instead of what the creator intended: a life reflecting God's goodness, truth and beauty.

The story of the temptation of Christ reveals that even he was attracted by the possibility of going off on his own instead of fulfilling his divine calling. He was, after all, as human as the rest of us, "like us in all things but sin". The Most High understands how easily we are turned away from our divine calling, our acknowledgment of dependence on the Spirit, the moral imperative to cooperate with God in renewing the face of the earth. Jesus' decision makes it possible for all of us to stay the course, even with our regressions into the lonely way of selfishness, aggression and despair.

These weeks before our celebration of the resurrection of Christ could be a wonderful opportunity to explore our own temptations to go it alone, to choose self over others, power over powerlessness, wealth over poverty, thoughtlessness over awareness, life over death. We could spend some time thinking about how we allow ourselves to be deceived, and lured away from our return to God, and the precious gift of divine life available simply for the asking.